Supervisor upset with chair appointments

FORT MADISON – A Lee County supervisor is upset with the nomination process for chairman and vice-chairman of the county board.

At the first regular meeting of the Lee County Board of Supervisors for 2018, Gary Folluo expressed his concern with south Lee County not having one of their elected supervisors in a chair or vice chair position for the past four years.

The chairman and vice chairman for the board were nominated and appointed at the meeting, which was held at the North Lee County office building. Supervisor Ron Fedler nominated Don Hunold for the chairman’s post and Rick Larkin as vice-chairman. Larkin was the chair in 2017 and Hunold the vice chair.

“I think it’s been over five years since we’ve had a chairman from south Lee County,” Folluo said “When we have appointments to boards and commissions this board has always tried to be fair. It didn’t matter where a person was from, we got them appointed to boards and commissions and,this board has been together for five years now, and I’ve not been chair or vice chair.

“And I don’t have a problem with Don Hunold being chair as it’s a natural progression to go from vice chair to chair, but I think I should rightfully be appointed vice chair. I’ve been on this board nine years and I was chair for the first year and haven’t been vice chair or chair since that time. Nothing has been said about it and I think its bad for the board to do that.”

Fedler said Supervisor Matt Pflug was vice chair for four years and said he’s discussed a chairmanship with Pflug in years passed.

“I talked to Matt about being chair and he said he’d just as soon not be the chair so it’s not like I haven’t talked to people about that,” Fedler said

Pflug said at that time his professional workload was too heavy to take on the chairmanship, but things have calmed down since then.

Folluo went on to say Larkin has been chair and vice chair for four or five of the past nine years and it was time the board looked at things differently.

“I’m all about being fair, but I don’t think this has been fair and I won’t support it,” Folluo said, and then asked to separate the nominations for chair and vice chair.

At that point a question in order came up as to how to deal with the Fedler’s motion. Lee County Auditor Denise Fraise said the motion was presented as a resolution as part of the agenda.

Folluo and Fedler agreed that Fedler would have to rescind or amend his motion, but according to rules book Fraise referred to during the meeting, any supervisor could motion to amend Fedler’s motion.

“I think it’s ridiculous that we have to have this conversation because we all talk about being fair and this has not been fair and everyone on this board knows it,” Folluo said.

Folluo then made a formal motion to separate the chair and vice chair nominations. A vote was conducted to amend Fedler’s motion which failed 2-3 with Larkin, Fedler and Hunold voting against the amendment. Then the original motion was back up for a vote and passed 3-2 with Pflug and Folluo voting against the nominations.

Hunold and Larkin then changed chairs and Hunold took chairmanship of the board and the meeting.

In other action, the board voted;

4-1 to keep the current board meeting time and schedule. Folluo, who cast the only no vote, asked again to move some meetings to county buildings in the county seats, “But this has fallen on deaf ears so let’s just move along,” Folluo said. Fedler said the chairman can schedule the meetings at other locations, but the sheriff’s office is centrally located and the holding meetings at the sheriff’s office is the safest way to go. Pflug said attempts to hold meetings at other locations didn’t boost attendance, but he said it did give residents who work a chance to attend the meetings if they move them to 5:30 or 6 p.m. and suggested they do that a couple of times.

5-0 to keep current supervisor committee board and commission assignments.

5-0, to extend the current Lee County Urban Revitalization Plan through Dec. 31, 2023

5-0 to amend the South Iowa Detention Service Agency agreement for the juvenile detention center. The amendment includes requiring member counties to send at least 80% of the juvenile offenders to the center in Montrose to maintain solvency for the agency. It also changed the agreement to allow counties to enter the agreement without paying a buy-in to share in original costs. However, if the agency were to ever dissolve, those counties would not receive any revenues from liquidating the commission and it’s facilities. Current counties involved in the agreement include Davis, Des Moines, Henry, Lee, Wapello, Mahaska, Jefferson, and Louisa.

5-0, to approve a resolution requiring all county employees to submit expenses in the fiscal quarter the expense is accrued and to eliminate paying mileage accrued from home to designated offices.

set Monday from 1:30 to 4 p.m. and Tuesday beginning at noon for 2018-2019 fiscal year budget workshops.

heard from Pflug that at the Keyway has stepped off as managers of the Lincoln Ridge Apartments in Keokuk. He said talks are ongoing with the Keokuk Housing Authority to take over the management position. Pflug said the group still has questions and left a meeting on Dec. 28th with no agreement. He said the goal is if the authority were to take managing Lincoln Ridge, they would like to take over the other county properties in Keokuk to help offset the costs of Lincoln Ridge. Currently the facility has no property manager.

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Pen City Current and pencitycurrent.com are products of Market Street Publishing, LLC, a multi-platform media company delivering hyper-local news, sports and advertising information to Fort Madison, IA and surrounding communities.